Monday, January 24, 2011

Works in Progress

[Editor's Note: the seventh point was inadvertently omitted in my original post. Added now post-facto.]
Today an update on the status of the Domain Game supplement itself. The PBEM experiment game seems to eat up way more time than I expected (though I complain not—still hella fun), yet somehow I do manage to make some headway.

Through the end of this month and the beginning of the next you can expect to see me release several of the play-test rules selections that I have fleshed out so far. I believe that even in their draft, non-integrated state that some of the sub-system pieces will have utility for GMs in their regular campaigns.

These are the most likely candidates for so far:

1. One Equipment List to Rule Them All

Large-scale expansion of civilian goods

Geared to different tech levels and rural/urban market availability

Bulk item purchase guidelines

2. Personnel Price List

Wage costs of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled professions

Costs for slaves, serfs, convicts, and indentured servants (nasty business that it is)

Geared to different tech levels and rural/urban market availability

3. Natural Resources

Mundane, special, and magical resource allocation by hex

Rating system for the quality/quantity of resources

Exhaustive lists of each resource indexed to market worth and special usage

Your ambition can motivate my lack there of. :) I guess as far as RPGs go, I have taken on a lot of projects over the years, though sadly many of them fell a part mainly because most of them were group projects.

I tend to jump in projects, and in games when I don't always have time for them. I'm loving this PBEM, and some of my other RPG related things have gotten the short end of the stick. That's alright though, because been fiending for this kind of game for a long time.

I may resurrect my blog with some posts regarding miniatures and armies (one word: plastics.)

So I was checking out your Swords and Spells supplement. A few questions:1. editing: page 6"In the first phase of melee, weapons with a longer reach strike first (ties are conducted simultaneously). On previous rounds weapons with a shorter reach strike first"Should be successive rounds, right?

2. Not seeing how different kinds of armor, or tactics such as shield walls, effect combat besides upgrading the unit type. Perhaps that's the idea.Another way might be having 'damage saves' by the figure hit. But that's more dice rolling.

3. Which brings me to the next: each figure having a d6 to hit seems like a lot of dice. But then it all depends on how many dudes we're talking about. Still, with command and unit formation rules, you're talking more than just skirmish size.

4. As you've got inches for movement, likely should also include assumed base size of the figures you've got in mind. This is for 28mm or 1/64 scale figs?

4. Not finished, but wanted to pass this on. It's not my blog so I can leave unfinished comments :) (now you know why I'm not updating, heh.) Looking forward to seeing how magic and monsters are/are not handled.

5. Would also love to see some play reports. Any chance you'd be using this in the context of the domain game over something like Vassal or Maptool?

"Not seeing how different kinds of armor, or tactics such as shield walls, effect combat besides upgrading the unit type. Perhaps that's the idea.Another way might be having 'damage saves' by the figure hit. But that's more dice rolling."

I have damage saves by armor, a simple and very old school mechanic (see Tony Bath's rules).

"each figure having a d6 to hit seems like a lot of dice."

Yeah this is a conscious choice, I like what they call "bucket of dice" mechanics. Simple d6 gaming dice are super cheap after all.

There is a very nice and simple way to handle this courtesy of the Warhammer Historical rules. One player rolls his big bucket of dice (or buckets), the defending player picks out the dice with hits and then rolls his saves with them. He then picks out those who die.

I should probably write this up and add it.

"As you've got inches for movement, likely should also include assumed base size of the figures you've got in mind. This is for 28mm or 1/64 scale figs?"

I have used these with figures ranging anywhere from 1/72 (20mm) to 28mm, works fine for all. 15mm you'd basically double it.

"Looking forward to seeing how magic and monsters are/are not handled."

This is the big ticket problem in all fantasy mini sets. Trying to model the hundreds of D&D spells alone gives me a migraine. Something I am definitely leaning toward heavily abstracting like HoTT.

"Would also love to see some play reports. Any chance you'd be using this in the context of the domain game over something like Vassal or Maptool?"

Should have one soon coming out of a battle on a haunted golden barge in the Domain Game.

I like Vassal, but man I would need some help figuring out how the hell to translate this mess.

Maptool is easy. At its most basic, you can use it like a dry erase board. Just need jpgs to use as tokens (farm that out to the players for their units), and use simple tools to draw the terrain (or upload a jpg of a map if you've got one.)